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What is it to Lose Hope?

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This paper addresses the phenomenology of hopelessness. I distinguish two broad kinds of predicament that are easily confused: ‘loss of hopes’ and ‘loss of hope’. I argue that not all hope can be characterised as an intentional state of the form ‘I

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  
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   -&
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$ 
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11097-011-9215-1
AUTHOR'S PROOF
Metadata of the article that will be visualized in OnlineFirst
1Article Title
What is it to lose hope?
2Article Sub- Title3Article Copyright -Year
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011(This will be the copyright line in the final PDF)
4Journal Name
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
5Corresponding Author Family Name
Ratcliffe
6Particle7Given Name
Matthew
8Suffix9OrganizationDurham University10DivisionDepartment of Philosophy11Address50 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HN, UK12e-mailM.J.Ratcliffe@durham.ac.uk13ScheduleReceived 14Revised 15Accepted 16Abstract
This paper addresses the phenomenology of hopelessness. I distinguishtwo broad kinds of predicament that are easily confused: ‘loss of hopes’and ‘loss of hope’. I argue that not all hope can be characterised as anintentional state of the form ‘I hope that
p
’. It is possible to lose all hopesof that kind and yet retain another kind of hope. The hope that remains isnot an intentional state or a non-intentional bodily feeling. Rather, it is a‘pre-intentional’ orientation or ‘existential feeling’, by which I meansomething in the context of which certain kinds of intentional state,including intentional hope, are intelligible. I go on to discuss severedepression, lack of aspiration, demoralisation and loss of trust in the world,in order to distinguish some qualitatively different forms that loss of hopecan take.
17Keywordsseparated by ' - '
Demoralisation - Depression - Existential feeling - Hopelessness -Pre-intentional emotion - Radical hope
18Foot noteinformation
AUTHOR'S PROOF
U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F
1234
What is it to lose hope?
5
Matthew Ratcliffe
67
#
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
89
Abstract
This paper addresses the phenomenology of hopelessness. I distinguish
10
two broad kinds of predicament that are easily confused:
‘
loss of hopes
’
and
‘
loss of
11
hope
’
. I argue that not all hope can be characterised as an intentional state of the
12
form
‘
I hope that
p
’
. It is possible to lose all hopes of that kind and yet retain another
13
kind of hope. The hope that remains is not an intentional state or a non-intentional
14
bodily feeling. Rather, it is a
‘
pre-intentional
’
orientation or
‘
existential feeling
’
, by
15
which I mean something in the context of which certain kinds of intentional state,
16
including intentional hope, are intelligible. I go on to discuss severe depression, lack
17
of aspiration, demoralisation and loss of trust in the world, in order to distinguish some
18
qualitatively different forms that loss of hope can take.
19
Keywords
Demoralisation.Depression.Existentialfeeling.Hopelessness.
20
Pre-intentional emotion .Radicalhope
2122
Introduction
23
My aim here is to cast some light on the nature of hope by exploring what it is to
24
experience a loss of hope. What kinds of predicament are communicated by statements
25
suchas
‘
I've lost hope
’
,
‘
there is no hope
’
,
‘
it
’
s hopeless
’
,
‘
I despair over this
’
or
‘
I
’
m in
26
despair
’
? One approach is to see whether different kinds of experience are associated
27
with different terms
—
perhaps an experience of
‘
hopelessness
’
differs in some way
28
from one of
‘
despair
’
. However, I will suggest that this is not very informative, as terms
29
like
‘
despair
’
and
‘
hopelessness
’
are used interchangeably to refer to a range of subtly
30
different experiences. In what follows, I will describe and thus distinguish some of
31
them.
Phenom Cogn SciDOI 10.1007/s11097-011-9215-1M. Ratcliffe (
*
)Department of Philosophy, Durham University, 50 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HN, UK e-mail: M.J.Ratcliffe@durham.ac.uk
JrnlID 11097_ArtID 9215_Proof# 1 - 23/07/2011
AUTHOR'S PROOF
U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F
32
One way of characterising loss of hope is to first offer an account of what it is to
33
hope and then treat loss of hope as the subtraction of a state or states of that kind.
34
Hope, one might suggest, is an intentional state of the form
‘
I hope that
p
’
. The task
35
of understanding hope would therefore require us to distinguish forms of hope from
36
various other kinds of intentional state, such as belief, desire and expectation. A
37
recent account along such lines is offered by Meirav (2009). He starts by considering
38
the view that hope consists of a desire plus an assessment of probability. This, he
39
observes, faces the problem that two people can have the same level of desire for
p
40
and assign much the same probability to
p
, while one of them hopes for
p
and the
41
other does not. Hence, according to Meirav, hope also involves recognising that
p
42
depends upon factors outside of one
’
s control. However, this is still not enough, as
43
despair similarly incorporates recognition that
“
something
distinct from oneself
”
will
44
settle the matter (Meirav 2009, p. 229). He thus adds that what distinguishes hope
45
from lack of hope or even despair is trust in this external factor, a sense that it is not
46
only somehow person-like but also ultimately good or on one
’
s side.
47
Without endorsing the specifics of this or any other analysis, let us assume
—
for
48
now
—
that something along these general lines is right, that hope is a distinctive kind
49
of intentional state.
1
To complicate matters, it is possible to distinguish several
50
subtypes of intentional hope. For example, Steinbock (2007, p. 439) mentions
51
desperation and panic, where desperation involves trying to
“
force the issue
”
rather
52
than waiting for it to resolve itself, whereas panic involves
“
freezing up
”
. There is a
53
more general distinction to be drawn between passive hope, where one waits for
54
something to happen, and more active forms of hope, which involve hoping that
55
one
’
s actions will achieve some outcome. We can also distinguish enthusiastic
56
anticipation, such as when a child unwraps a birthday present hoping to find
57
something nice inside, from the kind of hope that accompanies dread, where one
58
clings to the possibility that the dreaded event will not happen. However, regardless
59
of the various nuances we might discern, all share the common structure
‘
I hope (in
60
some way and to some extent) that/for
p
’
. Hence, it seems reasonable to assume that
61
‘
I
’
ve lost all hope of
p
’
communicates the fact that one no longer has an intentional
62
state of the general type
h
with content
p
(propositional or otherwise). However, not
63
all loss of hope is so content-specific. What about complaints such as
‘
I have lost all
64
hope
’
or
‘
all I can feel is utter despair
’
? We could simply extend the same account
65
and maintain that such predicaments involve losing a greater number of hopes or
66
perhaps even all hopes. Alternatively, rather than the sudden removal of one or more
67
tokens of type
h
, losing hope could be conceived of in terms of fading, where the
68
degree of hope in various possible outcomes gradually diminishes. Whichever the
69
case, it also needs to be acknowledged that loss of hope is not merely the absence of
70
something. People often complain of a painful awareness of loss. So we could
1
See, for example, Bovens (1999) and Pettit (2004) for other approaches that characterise hope as a kind
of intentional state. These authors also address whether, when and why it is rational to hope, as doesMcGeer (2004). That question is not considered here. However, my discussion does at least complicate it,as different answers will be required for different kinds of hope and hopelessness. Of course, discussion of hope is not restricted to broadly
‘
analytic
’
philosophy. See Webb (2007) for a more wide-ranging survey of contemporary and historical work on hope in philosophy and elsewhere. As Webb makes clear, hope is not always construed as an intentional state.M. Ratcliffe
JrnlID 11097_ArtID 9215_Proof# 1 - 23/07/2011
AUTHOR'S PROOF
U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O F
71
further add that intentional states of type
h
have been replaced by other types of
72
state, such as disappointment, sadness or regret.
2
73
I am not sure whether anyone explicitly advocates this kind of account. However,
74
something like it is implicit in at least some contexts of enquiry and practice.
75
Consider, for instance, the
‘
Beck hopelessness scale
’
, a device used in clinical
76
psychology to quantify a person
’
s degree of hopelessness (Beck et al. 1974). The
77
scale is premised on the view that hopelessness is not just an inchoate feeling, but
78
something that is constituted
—
at least in part
—
by evaluative judgements. The data
79
for calculating a person
’
s degree of hopelessness consist of yes/no responses to
80
twenty propositions, most of which explicitly concern the future. They include, for
81
example,
“
my future seems dark to me
”
and
“
I don
’
t expect to get what I really
82
want
”
. Loss of hope thus seems to involve a switch of attitude with respect to
83
various propositional contents. The scale does not make clear what it is that renders
84
one instance of hopelessness more profound than another. Perhaps greater profundity
85
involves loss of more hope contents or, alternatively, loss of hope contents that are
86
more encompassing in scope and thus have a more significant effect upon one
’
s life.
87
For example, loss of the hope that
‘
my life will have some kind of purpose
’
would
88
have a more significant effect than loss of the hope that
‘
I will do something today
89
that will have some kind of purpose
’
, as the former implies the latter but not vice
90
versa. Another possibility is fading: a more profound loss of hope could involve a
91
greater drop in the level of hope for various things. However, whichever account we
92
adopt in a given instance, losing hope would seem to involve loss or diminishment
93
of however many intentional states of a certain kind.
94
Even if the Beck scale does not actually entail such a view, it is at least insensitive
95
to the distinction between hopelessness as loss of intentional states and other kinds
96
of hopelessness that I will describe here, which are quite different. Much of the
97
recent philosophical literature on emotion is similarly insensitive. There is a
98
tendency to assume that emotional experiences must consist of intentional states
99
(such as
‘
judgements
’
,
‘
appraisals
’
or
‘
perceptions
’
), feelings, or a combination of
100
intentional states and feelings.
3
Some have challenged the view that all feelings are
101
either non-intentional states or intentional states that can only have one
’
s body or
102
part of one
’
s body as their object. For instance, Goldie (e.g. 2000; 2009) argues that
103
many feelings are
‘
feelings towards
’
states of affairs outside of the body. So emotions
104
need not consist of intentional states plus non-intentional feelings (or intentional
105
feelings directed exclusively at the body), as at least some of the relevant feelings are
106
intrinsically world-directed. However, regardless of this and numerous other
107
developments that further complicate discussion of the nature of emotion, a
108
pervasive assumption remains intact: that the ingredients of emotions can fall into
109
only two categories: intentional and non-intentional. I will challenge this
110
assumption, by showing that it serves to obscure an important aspect of our
2
My emphasis throughout is upon
loss
of hope and experience of that loss. However, it is important tokeep in mind that the various kinds of experience that we refer to as
‘
hopelessness
’
or
‘
despair
’
may haveadditional aspects. When one actively despairs over something, there is arguably more to this than just lossor awareness of loss.
3
See, for example, Solomon (2004) for a representative selection of recent approaches to emotion, wherethis assumption is very much in evidence throughout.What is it to lose hope?
JrnlID 11097_ArtID 9215_Proof# 1 - 23/07/2011

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